Category Archives: Training Time (WIP)
Comments on my pitch gratefully received
I sent in a short pitch of my WIP to Nicola Morgan at Help! I Need a Publisher!
It’s up on her blog today, along with two other YA pitches, and I’m sure all three of us would be very grateful for your constructive feedback. The comments so far have already picked on my undue fascination with commas so maybe I should send out a call – Help, I Need an Editor!
I’d already shared this with another pitcher Debby and she gave me some very helpful pointers. Thanks Debby. It’s always good to hear a range of opinions though.
Luckily I won Nicola’s ‘Write a Great Synopsis‘ (sponsored Amazon Associates link to the Kindle book) competition for a full synopsis critique and your comments will help me develop this short pitch into a longer synopsis to send for some Crabbit advice. I will of course be having another full read through of Nicola’s wonderful e-book too – I highly recommend it.
And by a wonderful coincidence or divine intervention – Nicola did have an e-mail addressed ‘Dear God’ this morning ;o) – the rest of my prize arrived today too. Huge thanks to Nicola for giving me the spider warning for Chapter 5 – I will make myself a calming cup of camomile in my new mug before tackling that one.
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T is for… (#atozchallenge)
T is for…
Time Travel
Love this picture (click on it for source link) and it kind of represents the way I want to represent time travel in my book.
My NaNoWriMo novel is about an academy for Time Police or Time Cops.
This inevitably brings with it Time Travel.
Now the idea of time travel blows my mind and I go round and round in circles trying to work out how what happens when you travel back to the past or to the future might affect the present. Sometimes I just give up because I think my brain might explode.
My main time travel influences are:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Back to the Future (1,2,3)
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Dr Who
I’m pretty sure I saw Time Cop with JCVD
Stargate (film)
Goundhog Day!
Tru Calling
Now this is going to be my book so I will make up my own lore about time travel but I’d like to know what the generally accepted rules are please, so to aid my research please direct me to any good resources, films, books etc.
What rules do you expect to see followed in time travel stories?
What annoys you/would annoy you in time travel stories?
Thanks for your help in the past, present and future.
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P is for… (#atozchallenge)
P is for…
Pegasus
Last November whilst writing my NaNoWriMo 50,000 words (which I’m hoping to add another 80,000 to in May and June this year) I wrote that my main character kept a copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew nearby.
I remember being distinctly annoyed that they always leave this book (and the Horse and his Boy) out of film adaptations because I think they could look wonderful on screen although they aren’t as ‘exctiing’ action-wise as the other books in the series.
One of the things I had remembered from the book was the Pegasus horse and on Saturday Nov 27th the Daily Mail ran a story called Pegasus rides again where a picture of a bull that looks like it has wings was shown. I’ve kept this clipping in the pocket of my moleskin notebook which I used during the challenge and took it as a sign. I’ve since re-read the TMN and there are some echoes from this in my book, spooky, huh?
I love intertextuality and when books and films and art etc speak to other works, so I plan to keep these echoes there even though the stories are very different.
I’m pretty sure I wanted a ride on a Pegasus pony when I was small and I remember having Pegasus (and Flutter) My Little Ponies (I incidentally love the My Little Pony film – smooze anyone?).
What mythical ceature inspires you?
kirstyes 